Have you ever made the decision to put in a serious effort and start to drink more water, exercise daily, meditate every morning, read more, be asleep by midnight or floss every day?
You may have even put a plan together on how to make it work and you successfully made it through the first couple of days, but then, a few days in, all your good intentions start to mysteriously disappear. All your efforts to form a positive habit stop, you are disappointed and wonder what the hell went wrong.
If you go through this pattern a few times, it’s easy to get discouraged and don’t even try anymore. But the truth is that habits can be conquered if you are willing to put in some work and learn the mechanics behind forming them.
Before we look into making a new habit stick, let’s look at what a habit really is… Habits are certain routines and behaviors that we repeat regularly and mostly do subconsciously. Habits play an important role in our lives because without habits, we would have to learn how to drive or how to brush our teeth every single day.
The behavioral patterns of habits are actually physically imprinted in our neural pathways. This is the reason why it is to hard to break old habits and form new ones.
Deciding to adopt a new, positive habit will initially need a lot of willpower. Willpower is like a muscle that needs to be trained. If your willpower muscle gets depleted before you were able to automate a new habit, you will give up.
So what are some things you can do to make a habit stick and be successful? Here are our TOP 8 STRATEGIES.
#1 Make a Commitment
Commitment can be an intimidating thing, but to form a new, positive habit, you need a serious mindset. Promise yourself you are going to make an honest, dedicated effort. Think of the one new habit you want to start incorporating into your life. Visualize yourself doing it daily and firmly decide that you are going to work towards your vision no matter what.
#2 One Habit at a Time
This is hugely important and most people ignore it. Don’t underestimate how much willpower and focus it actually takes to stick to a new habit. While it’s very easy to start a new habit, or even 5 at once, sticking to your new habit is a totally different story. Choose one new habit, period! Don’t think of it as one work habit, one social habit, one fitness habit… Commit to one habit only and don’t break this rule!
#3 Start REALLY Small
Don’t focus on results when you are starting to form a new habit. Make the habit as tiny as possible. Whatever it is that you think you should do, cut it in half and then, if possible cut it in half again. Maybe cut it in half one more time if your time is longer than two minutes. For example your new habit is to meditate daily for 20 minutes, but you have never meditated before. Cut it down to 10 minutes, then to 5 and then make a commitment to 2 minutes a day. Once you tackled the two minutes, slowly build yourself up over 8 weeks to get to 20 minutes.
#4 Find a Trigger
A trigger is a stimulus that precedes your new habit. Something we have done before is doing one push-up every time we go to the bathroom. Flushing the toilet was the trigger to do the push-up and eventually we worked our way up to 16 push-ups every time we went to the bathroom. Aligning a new habit with a trigger is incredibly helpful. After a while, the trigger will begin to naturally initiate the habit-doing mentality. So if we go back to the new habit of meditating every day, waking up may be your trigger. If you want to go to bed before midnight, reading a book for half an hour may be your golden ticket. The best triggers are the ones that are already in place. Keep in mind to immediately perform the new habit after the trigger and do it every single time the trigger occurs.
#5 Seek Positive Support
Motivation is crucial when we set out to develop a new habit and one of the most potent motivators is having the encouragement of other people. So if you want to start exercising, finding a workout buddy may help you stay motivated. Establish the support group before you start your new habit and make sure it is in place right at the beginning. To keep ourselves energized, inspiration and positivity is crucial. Build up an army of inspiration by finding powerful songs, motivational quotes, uplifting websites, inspirational books, empowering podcasts…
#6 Build Up Gradually
Schedule the times when you will increase the time you spent practicing your new habit. If we go back to the new habit of meditating every day for 20 minutes, start with 2 minutes right after you wake up for one week. Schedule an increase in time at the beginning of week two and stay with the increased time for two weeks. In the beginning of week 4, increase the time again and stick to it for two weeks and so on… The key is to get to the ultimate goal of 20 minutes slowly. Success doesn’t happen over night.
#7 Reward Yourself
When you have successfully completed your new habit, give yourself a reward. It doesn’t have to be something grand. Small, simple things that you enjoy. It could be as easy as allowing yourself to listen to your favorite song, indulging in a healthy breakfast, enjoying a book with your cup of coffee… Be creative and think outside the box to find the rewards that will help you stay motivated.
#8 Be Patient
If you are a little bit like us, being patient may be the most difficult skill of them all, but it may also be the most critical. You can definitely make incredible progress if you are consistent and patient. To stick to a habit, it should feel easy, especially in the beginning. If you stay consistent and increase your habit continually, it will get hard enough, soon enough. It always does. But to get there, you need to be patient.
Staying dedicated to a new habit is not easy, but if you keep at it long enough, you will realize the amazing value that comes from conquering a new habit. We learn and grow by challenging ourselves continually.
We are here for you and this blog is here for you. You are capable of so much more than you think. Be bold, be strong and believe in yourself.
Now we got a challenge for you… Before you do anything else, commit to forming a new habit right now.
WHAT HABIT DO YOU WANT TO START TODAY?
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked